


Fast Like You

by peacefulboo



Series: FLY [1]
Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Kid Fic, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-05-28
Packaged: 2020-03-20 18:42:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18998320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peacefulboo/pseuds/peacefulboo
Summary: When Tessa takes her seven-year-old daughter to meet her favorite author, the main thought running through her mind is "Please don't be a dick."





	Fast Like You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [iwantthemtostay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwantthemtostay/gifts).



> Belated birthday fic for iwantthemtostay who is the best of us. I'm glad you had a great weekend, friend, and I hope this extends the celebration just a little further. 
> 
> C gets co-writer credit for this one. Without her riffing and more, I'd still feel like there was a hive of wasps under my skin anytime I looked at the blank page for this. I'm surrounded by fantastic people. 
> 
> Thanks to thatsamoireh (D!) for the fantastically fast and thorough beta. You always make it better. 
> 
> And to A, your cheerleading really was a star here. Can't tell you how much it got me from point A to point B.

June 2021

Tessa smooths back wisps of her daughter’s wavy, dark blonde hair that have escaped the two fun buns she insisted Tessa put them in for the occasion, as Joanna fidgets with the book in her hands. She is biting her lip and quietly humming something tuneless as they wait in the longer than expected line. Joanna is one of the youngest people here, and the other children her age seem to be accompanying their parents rather than the other way around. She’s also one of the more well dressed, having insisted that she was meeting someone important and one should always dress nice when meeting someone important. For the seven-year-old this means a white button down with a gold and black tartan blazer, black pixie pants with little golden snitches all over, and black oxfords on her feet. It’s a look she’s proud of, and Tessa finds adorably sharp. 

“Look! I can see him,” Joanna tells her as she looks up at Tessa with a nervous smile. She scrunches her nose and opens her eyes wide, making a silly face and Tessa can’t help but pop a quick kiss to the bridge of her daughter’s heavily freckled nose. Joanna rolls her eyes in response but smiles just the same. 

“Yeah, Bug. We’re getting closer,” Tessa assures her kid, though the only thing going through her own head is _Please don’t be a dick. Please don’t be a dick._

She’s not actually too worried that her daughter’s favorite author will be anything other than kind. Scott Moir is beloved locally, respected nationally. He is doing a book signing for his new autobiography at the London Chapters downtown and Tessa didn’t have the heart to tell Joanna that she wasn’t allowed to bring a different book for him to sign. Joanna has read the book in her hands from cover to cover more than ten times; the pages are crinkled and stained and the cover is a little worse for wear. Joanna, at seven years old, does not care that her book is well past the “gently-used” label. Her baby tends to get a little obsessive about certain things, and for the last two years, it’s been this book, and the hockey playing ladies whose stories it tells. 

When she was five and her Uncle Kevin gave her the book, she was mostly enchanted by the pictures and loved to listen to her mom read her the stories at bedtime. As she got older and more comfortable reading by herself, she also became fascinated by the man who wrote the book. That he was also a hockey player, who played first for the Knights, and then for the Senators and the Canadian Men’s National Hockey team in 2010 before suffering a career ending injury in 2011, only made her slightly more fascinated with him. 

The little girl isn’t exactly interested in stories about Scott Moir’s hockey days, or how he became a writer. What Joanna wants is more stories about the ladies. Tessa has tried to prepare her for how short their meeting will be and has made sure that her daughter knows she needs to mention that it was his book that sparked her interest in the team in the first place, but she won’t be surprised if Joanna’s first question is asking if Hayley Wickenheiser and Meghan Agosta are as cool as she thinks they are. 

When they finally get to the front of the line, Joanna is nearly crawling out of her skin with anticipation. Tessa lets her squeeze her hand as tight as she wants and gives the writer a tight, pleading smile. 

She knows it’s unnecessary the moment he smiles back at her for half a second and then turns his attention toward the vibrating child next to her. 

“Hello there! I’m Scott! What’s your name?” he greets Joanna, holding out his hand for a high five. 

“Hi!” Joanna squeaks out as she manages to connect with his thumb as she enthusiastically goes in for the slap. “I’m Joanna. But everyone calls me Jo.” He laughs and shakes out his hand like she did some damage and makes a show of how hard she hit him. 

“You’re so strong, Jo.” he tells her with a sincere nod. “Thank you for coming. Do you want me to sign your book?” he asks, nodding to the battered book in her hands. 

“Please!” Joanna tells him as she shoves the book at him. It’s the junior edition of the book, a retrospective on the Canadian Women’s Hockey team from 2010 to 2018, which was published the fall after the Pyeongchang Olympics. 

He technically isn’t supposed to be signing anything other than new copies of his autobiography but Scott ignores the audible sigh from a tall man who must be his manager as he takes the book from the girl. “How many times have you read this, kiddo?” he asks his eyes wide as he takes in the wear and tear. 

“Lots,” she says as she hops up and down, her hands on the table helping her bounce a little higher than normal. “They’re so cool! And you _know_ them,” she tells him with not just a little awe in her voice. 

He chuckles at her observation and agrees, “They are very cool.” He quickly flips through her copy of the book and smiles at all the doodles she’s drawn in the margins. There are hockey sticks and nets and pucks, but there are also flowers and hearts and stars in every color of the rainbow. She put yellow shine marks around Marie-Philip Poulin’s picture. “Who is your favorite?” he asks her. 

“Meghan Agosta. I also like Coyne because she’s very little like me and very, very fast. But she’s American,” the girl informs him with a grimace. “So she can’t be my favorite.”

“Excellent choice,” he tells her, sounding impressed. “What’s your favorite thing about Agosta?” 

“She’s so fast!” 

“She is,” Scott agrees. “Do you play hockey?”

“Yep,” Joanna answers, though now that she’s the subject of the discussion, she leans back against Tessa’s legs and turns her face away, suddenly a little shy. 

“I bet _you’re_ fast,” Scott says. 

Joanna’s head whips up quickly, her eyes big in wonder. “I am so fast,” she agrees. 

“She’s a hustler,” Tessa says, fondness evident in her voice. “She’s so small for her age, always has been, but she’s quick.”

“I was the smallest boy on my team my whole life. You gotta be twice as quick when you’re shorter than everyone, huh.”

Joanna nods in agreement. She starts biting her lip and looking between her mom and Scott and then back at the few people that are still in line behind them. 

“She has a lot of questions,” Tessa says with a rueful smile. “But I think she might be a tad bit overwhelmed.”

Scott looks at the rest of the fans in line, several who are looking impatient, all of who look to be adults, and makes eye contact with Tessa before looking back down at Joanna. 

“Tell you what. If you have time to hang around, and only if your mom is okay with it, once I’m done signing books for everyone waiting, you can ask all your questions.”

“Oh no,” Tessa says. “That’s too generous. She has an infinite amount of questions.” He has no clue what he’s agreeing to.

“I don’t mind at all,” he assures her but then amends his offer. “How about if instead of answering _all_ her questions, I agree to answer five of them. And then if either of us need to get going, none of us are committed.” 

“How ‘bout seven?” Joanna haggles with a shrewd glint in her eye. 

Scott looks up at Tessa with his eyebrows raised in question. At her nod, he puts his hand out for another high five with Joanna. “Seven it is!”

At this Joanna takes her book back from him and drags her mom over to the small cafe. She gets her daughter a small vanilla steamer, a medium tea for herself, and a packet of shortbread cookies for them to split, and then they settle onto a couch that affords them a view of where Moir and his team are still working through the rest of the line. 

Tessa figures they have about thirty minutes to kill, so she pulls out a notepad and asks, “How about if we make a list of the questions you have and then we can pick the top seven.”

“Yes! I love making lists,” Joanna exclaims as she gives a little fist pump. 

Tessa laughs a little at her enthusiasm and then helps her start her list. 

 

It’s closer to 40 minutes later when Scott and a woman he introduces as his cousin and assistant, Cara, join them in the cafe. 

“Can I get either of you more to drink?” Cara asks as she takes her cousin’s card to get his order. 

“Oh no,” Tessa replies. “Thank you. We’re still working on these.” 

Scott sits on the edge of an armchair arranged catty-corner to the couch and nods at the notebook in Tessa’s hands. “Hit me with your questions, Kiddo.”

They spend the next half-hour making their way through way more than seven questions. Tessa watches as Moir’s focus stays mostly on Joanna, how he listens intently and asks follow up questions, or for clarification when her daughter gets a little tongue-tied. 

But Moir has an ease about him and a rapport with Joanna that obviously settles her nerves and gets her chattering. It’s sweet to see her daughter so engaged in a conversation with someone who is both her idol and also enthusiastic about the topic. Tessa can see as he answers her daughter’s myriad questions that he truly does have immense admiration, respect and even awe for many of the women who have played hockey for Canada over the last couple of decades. 

Tessa also appreciates how frequently he checks in with her as the conversation between him and Joanna continues. He’s including Tessa, but he’s also deferring to her every time Joanna asks a new question that will extend the conversation, making sure that she is okay with them continuing. At no point does he look impatient or like he wants to cut the conversation short. 

Just as Tessa is getting ready to intervene and encourage them to wrap it up, Joanna says something that makes Moir throw his head back in laughter as Joanna gives a satisfied smirk and then dissolves into giggles herself. 

_Oh no,_ Tessa thinks. _He’s ridiculously attractive._ The way his smile lights up his face, how he laughs with his whole body and his eyes shine as he looks over at Tessa and then cocks his head at Joanna. 

“You’ve got a great kid here.”

“I do,” Tessa agrees. 

“She must have a great mom, too,” he tells her with a softer smile. 

“I do,” Joanna pipes up. “She’s the best mom!”

“I don’t know about that,” Scott replies, focusing back on Joanna. “I have a pretty awesome mom, too.”

“She’s the best mom for _me_ ,” Joanna clarifies with an exasperated look. 

Moir looks back at Tessa with a look that makes Tessa’s breath catch, the bald admiration so clear. “She seems pretty great, yeah.”

They stand then and Tessa extends her hand in thanks. His hand is warm and dry and his shake is firm and sure. “Thank you so much for this,” Tessa tells Scott quietly. “It means the world.”

“Anytime,” he tells her. “Really. She’s awesome.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out one of his cards. In a low whisper he says, “I’m doing a panel in Toronto next week with some of the players from the women’s game to talk about the new league. I could probably get her in to meet them if it would work out for you guys. Just text me to let me know if I can arrange it.”

“That’s too much,” Tessa murmurs. “Thank you for today, though.”

“I’m also putting on a clinic at a local rink in a couple of months. Registration closes soon, and she’s on the younger end, but I think she’d have fun. And there’s at least one surprise guest that she’d enjoy getting to learn from. Cara’s number is on my card, too, if you would rather talk to her about it.”

Tessa takes the card and slips it into her purse. They’re packing up to leave when Scott starts and practically shouts, “Wait!”

Tessa and Joanna look back. Scott holds out his hand for the book. “I didn’t sign it.”

Joanna’s look of horror at almost missing out on his autograph is so endearing that Tessa hugs her to her side and then encourages her to give the book back to Scott. 

He sticks his tongue out a little as he looks down at the title page, thinking about what he wants to write. Then he nods and starts to scribble way more than just his signature. “There. All done,” he says as he hands the book back to Joanna. 

“Thank you!” Joanna says without looking at the inscription. This time instead of going in for a high five, her daughter wraps her arms around Moir’s leg in a quick hug and then darts back over to her mom before he’s able to react. 

After, when they’re in the car driving home, Jo opens the book and reads the inscription, smiling bright as the sun when she looks back up at Tessa. It’s not until they get home and Jo is getting ready for bed that Tessa gets a chance to read it. 

_Joanna,_

_The world is your oyster when you’re fast like you. Go get ‘em, Kiddo. See you on the Olympic National team in 2030!_

_Your friend,_  
Scott Moir  
***

Life gets busy and Tessa honestly manages to forget about the business card she slipped into a side pocket of her purse. Between her own clients, and gearing up for a conference in Toronto that focuses on women in psych, she barely has time to sleep much less plan anything extra. Tessa is giving one of the keynote addresses mostly as a favor to her advisor after one of the speakers had to drop out a month before the conference, and while she’s grateful for the opportunity, she’s a bundle of nerves in the days leading up to the event. 

The speech goes well and since Tessa is kid free for the weekend (Jo spends most weekends with her dad, but Tessa still likes to be available when possible) she heads down to the swanky hotel bar and orders a vodka and soda with extra lime, a drink she sucked down during her days as a dancer, but somehow still maintains a fondness for, especially during the muggy days of late summer. She’s regretting not calling up one of her local friends, though she’ll see two of them the next day for brunch, when she hears a somewhat familiar voice ask for scotch on the rocks as a man settles onto the bar stool next to her. 

She finds herself blushing when she realizes that she essentially blew off two incredibly generous offers and is trying to decide if she should slip away to a table, or back up to her room, or if she should just face Scott and apologize for the oversight, when he says speaks again. 

“It’s you.” He doesn’t sound disappointed by this and he doesn’t sound upset with her at all. The fact that he recognizes her is surprising, though. 

“It’s me,” Tessa agrees. 

His face goes blank then and he shrugs and cocks his head away from the bar, “I can go sit somewhere else if you’d prefer.” 

“No, no! Stay.” She reaches out to quickly lay her hand on Scott’s arm before pulling back and continuing, “I’m glad I get a chance to apologize. The last few weeks have been...a lot, and I’m so sorry I didn’t get back to you about the conference or the clinic.”

“No need to apologize. I hope it was a good kind of busy, at least.” He takes a drink while waiting for her reply.

“Yes and no. I had to pull together a talk for a conference today and didn’t know I would be doing it until right around the time of your book signing. It was such a short turn around that it was stressful, but sometimes I think that not having too much time to get worked up and over think it is a blessing.”

“For sure. If there’s too much lead time and not enough to do to fill it, our minds can get the better of us, yeah?”

“Exactly. I’m pretty good about planning out my time and pacing myself, but it’s good for me to get squeezed every once in a while.”

“Can I ask what the talk was on?”

“The conference was the Women in Psychology Summit and I had already been slotted in for a workshop on the pros and cons of Positive Attribution Theory, but for the keynote they wanted me to talk about how women can work together to build each other up, support each other, the importance of mentorship, all of the good stuff really.” She takes a drink and shrugs, figuring that he likely isn’t too interested in the topic. 

But when Tessa dares to look over at him, there is admiration and rapt attention looking back at her. She can feel her face heating a little and is grateful that she doesn’t generally flush even when it feels like she’s blushing. 

“You can’t be older than 30 and you’re giving a keynote at a huge conference like that?” Scott says as he shakes his head in wonder. “And you have an incredibly well adjusted daughter in all of this. It’s amazing.”

She shakes her head. If there’s one thing that conferences like this remind Tessa, it’s that she’s so very, very lucky. “I have so much help with Jo. And with work, and I had great mentors and my parents helped with school and childcare and housing. Jo’s dad still helps out a lot, too,” she explains. 

“Yeah, but you still did it.”

“I did. And I did work hard for what I have, but the older I get, the more out in the world I get, the more I realize just how much help I had. How many obstacles I didn’t have to face because of the world I come from, what I look like, the connections I had simply by being related to my parents. If it was that exhausting and tiring for me with all of that...”

Scott nods his head in understanding before asking, “I’ve been working on some profile pieces for a few of the guys on the Knights and they keep telling me about Positive Attribution Theory and how some of the principles have changed how they work together as a team, the defense in particular. Since the front office of the mental prep coaching staff has been giving me the runaround, maybe I can pick your brain about it? Not tonight, of course, but after you’ve caught your breath from this conference?”

Tessa laughs and shakes her head. If his face wasn’t so relaxed and open she’d swear this was a set up (and a little part of her thinks it still could be, but she isn’t sure she cares too much.) 

Instead she puts out her hand, offering to shake his and properly introduces herself. “Dr. Tessa Virtue, at your service. Sorry my staff blew you off. As I said before, it’s been a busy month.” She bites her lip and can’t help but look up at him through her lashes in a move that is both deliberately and organically coy. 

“Wait. _You’re_ the Virtch?!” he asks, completely incredulous. “Holy shit, you know they all think the world of you, right?”

“That’s so kind. I enjoy working with them as well,” she pauses and scrunches up her face a little. “Well most of them. Some of them I punt off to Jack because they have a hard time listening to someone with boobs.”

“I bet I can name them and yeah, fuck them. You may be a mental health professional, but you don’t need to deal with their bullshit.” Scott stares at her again for a moment, that look of awe back on his face and then shakes his head, perhaps in an attempt to clear it, and throws back the last of his drink. “I have so many questions but I don’t want to make you talk about work.”

Tessa takes a second to take a long drink from her own glass and then looks over at him, trying to decide what her next step should be. The truth is that she doesn’t want to stop talking to him and she has a million questions too. 

So she holds out her hand to him and says, “If you’ll give me your phone, I’ll put my number in and you can text me directly to setup a time to talk shop.” 

Scott quickly pulls out his phone, unlocks it, opens up his contacts and hands the phone to her. 

Brave move. 

Tessa quickly inputs both her work and personal numbers, carefully labeling each, and then quirks an eyebrow at him in question. 

“Go ahead. I already gave you this number, I don’t mind you having it.”

So she texts herself from his phone, sending a generic smile emoji and then handing the phone back to him. 

They spend the next hour talking more about their lives. Scott’s obviously fond of his nieces and nephews, and Tessa tells him what it was like growing up with three older siblings. Scott tells her how his figure skating influenced his hockey and how he’s started doing more consulting for different hockey teams over the last five years, focusing on power stroking and speed generation, in addition to the freelance journalism he’d already mentioned. They talk about Joanna and how great she is but Tessa opens up a little about some of Joanna’s struggles.

They talk for another hour and a couple more drinks before Tessa does her best to stifle a yawn, still emitting a small creaking sigh from her throat that makes her laugh and has Scott giving her a look of fondness that takes her breath away. 

“I should let you get some rest,” he says and the reluctance in his voice is so thick Tessa’s almost sure she could snatch it out of the space between them. 

“Probably,” she agrees, and then tells him the truth, “But I don’t want to.” 

“Well. I have your number now, and I’d still love to learn more about the work you’re doing with the Knights. I’ll be back in London next week. We’ll make a plan then, yeah?”

“Okay. Yes. Call me when you get home and we’ll set something up.”

She leaves some cash on the bar for a tip and then stands, not being able to stop a second yawn. She sways a little as the exhaustion from the weekend and the extra drinks go to her head, just a little. He reaches out and steadies her with a hand on her shoulder and she smiles up at him in thanks. 

And then he leans in and drops a kiss on her cheek and Tessa can’t help but breathe in his heady scent which gives her goosebumps and makes her shiver in response. 

“You gonna be okay, Virtch?” he asks as he keeps close, his hands still a steadying presence on her shoulders. 

“Hmm. Yeah,” she answers. “Just a bit of a headrush. It’s gone now.” It’s only half a lie. 

“Okay,” he says as he takes a small step back. “I’ll see you soon.” 

Tessa nods and then reaches up on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek in return, before turning around and walking to the elevator bank. 

She makes it to her room with little thought, and takes her time getting comfortable and taking off her make-up. She’s just crawling into bed when her phone lights up with a message from him. 

_Just wanted to make sure you made it back to your room okay._

She smiles. 

_**You’re sweet. I’m safe as houses. Sleep well.** _

And then she turns her phone face down and lets her exhaustion and the lingering effects of the alcohol lull her into sleep. 

***  
She and Scott meet up for a working dinner a couple of weeks later and Tessa is impressed again with how attentive he is. He asks good questions, listens to her answers and follows up with more questions or occasionally insightful conclusions. She enjoys their time together but has to cut it short when she realizes it’s time to get back to relieve the babysitter. 

Scott is off on a work trip to Europe for the next month and change, so Tessa gives him a light kiss on the cheek and tells him she hopes he has a safe trip. He gives her a quiet smile and tells her to enjoy the rest of her summer. 

They don’t text. Scott emails her the relevant paragraphs of his article to fact check, and she compliments him on capturing the complexities of the concept, but that’s the extent of their communication. 

It’s a bit of a let down, but Tessa is busy enough and sensible enough to move past it. 

***

Here’s the thing. Every mother thinks their child is talented, and Tessa’s no different on that front, but she also tries to be realistic. Still, it’s gratifying, if not a little nerve wracking, when a coach from a team a grade older than Joanna’s pulls Tessa aside and asks her if she’d let Jo practice with their team a few times to see if she can rise to the challenge. From the tone of his voice, he thinks she just might. 

Jo agrees to the trial run, though her nerves are evident the first practice. 

For the time being, practices are in London proper, which is convenient, but they’ve already been warned that as the older hockey teams start back up, they’ll probably have to move practices to some of the arenas on the outskirts of town. Jo is still taking dance lessons, and when Tessa, reluctantly, asks her if she wants to focus on just hockey now, the little girl had been horrified at having to choose. Between Tessa, Jo’s dad Greg, and Greg’s fiance Marianne, they manage to get her to all her practices, but they all know that she might have to choose a more serious path in the coming years. At seven, the three of them agree that it’s best to let her keep up with both as long as she’s enjoying them. 

Three weeks into the trial with the new team, Tessa’s a little worried. 

Joanna is already small for her age, but now that she’s playing up, she’s completely dwarfed by the older players on the team. Still, she’s scrappy, fights for the puck, has steady, sure hands and can often get where she needs to be ahead of the other players. The level she’s playing at is just on the cusp of when things start to get a little rougher, though, and while Jo is a tough kid, she’s being raised by two soft spoken parents and has cousins who would prefer to read or play quietly in their room than get into a wrestling match, much to Tessa’s brothers’ chagrin. Jo is more energetic than her cousins, but she’s used to her surroundings being calm and organized. Tessa isn’t sure how she’ll take the chirping and the more physical game on a regular basis. 

The other kids seem to be okay with her presence on the team, likely due to her ability to get the job done without outshining the star players on the team, but they also haven’t been particularly friendly with her. They don’t talk to her much at all, really. 

“You’ll tell me if they aren’t nice to you, right Bug?” Tessa asks her a few weeks into her time with the new team. 

“They are nice to me,” Jo tells her as she looks up from where she’s shoving her equipment into her bag. 

“Okay. That’s good. Are any of them your friends?” Tessa asks, and almost instantly regrets it. She knows better. 

Jo handles it well, though. “I have friends at school, Mama. I don’t need friends at hockey.” The thing is, she believes it. And she’s right. Jo has school friends that she can hang out with during recess and that she occasionally sees outside of school for birthday parties and playdates. And Tessa and Megan get the girls together a few times a month so the cousins can hang out together, but Tessa isn’t sure that having almost zero camaraderie in a team setting is healthy, even if no one is actively hostile. She reads Greg and Marianne in on her concerns, and they both agree to keep an eye on it, then together they’ll reevaluate at the end of the season, unless something pops up. 

A few weeks before the team starts playing games for the season another younger kid joins the team. Everyone calls him Skitch, and he’s only little bigger than Jo. He’s almost as fast as she is, but he has slightly better hands, so they tend to go up for the same plays and Tessa gets a little worried about how that’s going to work out. 

How it works out is fantastic. The two are fiercely competitive but enjoy every single second of it. They get in trouble on occasion when they try to one up each other or make the other laugh, but Jo is blossoming within the friendship, and the internal competition between the two is upping her game in an impressive way and Tessa couldn’t be happier about it. 

“Are you Ms. Tyler-Virtue?” A woman says the name slowly as though she’s unsure if it’s right. Then she clarifies, “JJ’s mom?” She has light brown hair and a kind smile that Tessa easily recognizes from Skitch’s face. The woman sits in an empty spot next to Tessa as they wait for practice to wrap up. 

“Dr. Virtue,” Tessa automatically corrects, and then shakes her head in horror. “Sorry, Tessa. Call me Tessa. And yes, I’m Joanna’s mom.” Skitch has taken to calling Joanna “JJ” and it seems to have caught on with the rest of the team. There’s a boy named Joe who has been on the team for years, and Skitch is insistent that he’ll also get his friend mixed up with his Grandpa Joe, and since it doesn’t seem to bother Jo, Tessa shrugs and lets it be. It’s cute and her daughter is proud of the nickname; there’s not much to complain about. 

“It’s so nice to meet you. I’m Nicole, and my son has declared that your daughter is his best friend, so I figured we should get to know each other.”

They sit and chat as practice winds down and Tessa finds Nicole so disarming and sweet, she wonders if her daughter isn’t the only one to have found a friend through hockey. 

***

Due to a fluke in scheduling and a favorable traffic pattern, Tessa gets Jo to the rink the team has started practicing at in Ilderton a full twenty minutes early. Jo spots Nicole’s van immediately and races inside, her gear bag eclipsing her small frame, before Tessa has her purse in hand. By the time she signs her kid in and makes it into the small arena, Jo is sitting on a bench behind the boards and chatting with Skitch as he skates in lazy patterns and waits for Jo to get her skates on. He’s wearing hockey skates, but for the first time Tessa realizes that he can move with real grace and has some solid skating skills for a kid his age. 

Once Jo has her skates on and tied, and her helmet and kit on, she yells up to Tessa, “Can I skate now please?!” 

Tessa looks around and sees Nicole standing behind the boards with Skitch’s dad while two other men talk to them from the ice side of the boards. She also sees that there are a handful of other kids of varying ages skating around together (though none of the rest of Jo’s team), motioning for Skitch to hurry up already. 

Nicole raises a hand to wave Tessa over and gives her the go ahead to let Jo play with the others. 

“Make good choices, Bug,” she calls to Jo, who immediately races out onto the ice. Tessa winds her way through the stands and over to the adults at a more sedate pace.

She’s almost to them when one of the girls on the ice calls out, ”Uncle Scott’s it!”

“Oh I am, am I?!” he yells back and then skates toward the girl. She shrieks and giggles as she speeds away from him. All the kids scatter but her uncle catches her, twirls her around a few times and then sets her back down and yells, “Q’s it!” as he glides back to the boards. 

Tessa’s brow furrows as she starts to connect the dots. 

“Hi,” she says as she hugs Nicole in greeting. 

“Tess! I tried to text you to let you know that practice is cancelled. Half the team is out with the flu and coach decided to cancel. Our kids knew that their uncle was back in town and would be here so they begged us to bring them anyway.”

“I left my personal phone at home this morning, but wasn’t too worried since my family has my work number. I guess I should give you that number, too.” 

“I promise not to abuse it,” Nicole replies before turning toward the men next to her. “Tessa, this is my husband Charlie, and his brothers Danny and Scott.” 

Tessa puts her hand out to shake first Charlie and then Danny’s hand, murmuring her greeting and then she looks up at Scott and can’t help the half dopey, half sad smile. “Hi Scott,” she says. 

“Hey Tessa. It’s good to see you again.” 

Tessa can feel the confused looks on the other adults’ faces and puts on her neutral, pleasant, professional face. “Jo’s favorite author is Scott. We met at a signing a few months back. This charmer let her grill him for over half-an-hour after he was done for the night.”

Charlie lets out a snort and Danny shrugs in acknowledgement of how unsurprising that sounds. 

“And Tessa has been doing brilliant work with the Knights, among other things. She let me question _her_ for much more than half-an-hour for an article last month,” he says without taking his eyes off of her. His smile is wistful and damn if Tessa doesn’t just want to kiss him. 

“Ah,” Charlie says. “You’re the Virtch.”

Tessa chuffs out a laugh and nods. “I am the Virtch.” She’s still slightly baffled that anyone outside of the players know that nickname, much less say it like it’s impressive. 

Scott stands up a little straighter as he looks up and sees one of the littlest kids, playing a few feet away from the adults, about to get run over by one of his older nieces who is laughing as she skates backwards. “Hey, hey,” he barks out in warning as he intercepts the little one, who can’t be older than three or four, and tosses him into the air as the older girl has the grace to look contrite before skating off again. The little one, pretty much oblivious to the danger he was in just giggles as Scott swings him up above his head for a second and then sets him back down on the ice with a pat on his butt. 

Then he looks between Tessa and where his nephew is skating as fast as he can away from a small girl whose helmet obscures her face, Scott’s eyes going wide as he sees the girl actually catching up to Skitch. 

“Wait. JJ is Jo?”

“Yeah,” Tessa replies. “Your nephew gave her that name and it stuck.”

Scott leans back against the boards and watches them with renewed interest. The kids are playing a chaotic game that seems to be a form of tag, but Tessa can’t make heads or tails of how one gets tagged or how many people are even ‘It’ at any given time. 

“What exactly are they playing?”

“Rink tag,” Charlie supplies.

“What are the rules?”

Scott laughs and then answers, “Do you know what Calvinball is?”

“A fake game made up by a six-year-old cartoon character and his imaginary tiger friend?”

“That’s the one.”

“So the rules follow six-year-old logic?”

“Pretty much. I stopped being able to follow the rule changes in my teens. Now I mostly just try to keep an eye out for anything that will result in stitches.”

“And are you successful at that?”

“Most of the time,” Scott tells her with a smirk and a wink. “The rest of the time that’s what we have Charlie and Danny for.”

Tessa had planned to hang out at a coffee shop and get some work done while Jo was practicing, but instead gets pulled into the conversations with the various Moirs as the kids slide from one game to the next. Tessa keeps one eye on the ice, but she notes that all the other adults do too. 

One thing she appreciates is just how tough the girls in this family are. They give as good as they get and are shoving each other to get to a puck one minute, and then pulling off complex turns and spins that Tessa wasn’t even sure were possible in hockey skates. She can’t help but think that Jo could do worse than to hang out with the Moir cousins and their mix of rough and tumble with physical grace and sweet humor. 

When she isn’t watching the kids, Tessa can’t keep her eyes and attention from consistently drifting back to Scott, no matter who she’s talking or listening to. He’s gorgeous and extremely good at multitasking and his hair is a little longer than she’d last seen it and is standing on edge from the many times he runs his hands through it (is he nervous or does he just do that all the time?) and then that draws her attention to his hands and forearms which are very well structured and eye-catching and fuck. 

Tessa doesn’t do this. She’s had two serious boyfriends since she left the ballet, one being Greg, who she dated through most of undergrad and promptly broke up with once she got pregnant with Jo, and the other was a very nice guy she met in the second year of her Psy D when Jo was a three-year-old. Other than that, there have been a couple of hookups with friends of friends, but in general Tessa has been content to live her life with her work and her daughter. She’s even started to seriously wonder if she just isn’t built for relationships, given that she hasn’t been all that fussed about her lack of romantic companionship, or even sexual partners. 

But now here’s this man who fascinates her and makes her smile and keeps drawing her in a little bit more with each encounter. Every time she’s left his presence she’s done so because it’s practical and she’s moved on fairly easily but for the first time, maybe ever, she been left with something like yearning. 

It’s simultaneously off-putting and exhilarating and if Tessa drifts a little closer to him throughout the hour, well, she can’t help it. 

“She really is phenomenally good for her age,” Scott murmurs as she leans forward with her forearms against the boards from the dry side and he leans back, arms crossed in front of him and they watch the kids dart around the ice. 

“I can’t help but worry now that she’s playing up,” Tessa admits, her voice equally low. “It’s frankly a miracle she hasn’t been injured at this point.” 

“She’s got good coaches that watch out for them. More than any of our coaches did, anyway,” Scott says. 

“And she wants it so badly,” she concedes. “Now that Skitch is with her, she’d never leave the ice if other teams didn’t need the practice time.”

“It’s fun to watch them together. Nic says that they seem to take care of each other just as much as they challenge each other,” Scott says. Then he cocks his head a little watching them. “Did Jo ever do any figure skating? They’d make a decent ice dance pair.”

Tessa burst into laughter at this but then sees that he’s serious. 

“Between dancing on solid ground and hockey, I think I’d go crazy if she added another sport to the mix. And she’s only seven. I dread what it’s going to be like as she gets older.”

”She’s in dance?” Scott asks as he looks at Tessa with a little more scrutiny. “You were a dancer, then?”

“She is and I was. I even taught classes until she was five, but had to give it up as she got older and busier. How’d you know?”

“Even leaning against the boards you have excellent posture.”

“So do you,” Tessa admits, remembering how easy he made lifting his niece look, as if it was nothing at all to balance both of them on the edge of a hockey blade while spinning on ice. 

“I did ice dance for a few years. Passed all my dance tests and even partnered for money, but never could find a steady partner. I was a lot to take. Drove my ballet teachers at summer camp nuts with my antics. You’d have hated to have me as a student.”

Tessa looks at him in wonder. She has so many questions. “So Skitch does ice dance?” 

“He’s too much like me in that he’s driven all potential partners a little nuts, so he’s mostly doing singles. He’s got better jumps than Danny or I did, but he’s also like me, in that hockey is his first and only love so far. He enjoys figure skating to an extent, and enjoys making my mom and aunt happy, but if he had to choose...”

They drift into silence for a bit, watching as Skitch and his older sister show Jo different turns that obviously have their foundation in figure skating, but can be done reasonably well on hockey skates. 

“She’s a quick learner,” Scott says as the kids celebrate Jo’s third successful execution of the turn. 

“She is,” Tessa agrees. 

The next group of skaters are starting to trickle into the arena so Charlie’s oldest calls Scott back to the ice. One by one, from youngest to oldest, Scott lifts the kids and spins them around quickly as he gives different instructions for how they should hold themselves. He gets to his nine-year-old niece and asks, “What’s your job?”

“Hold my core, do the work, and trust you,” she says in an exasperated tone. 

“You know it,” he says as he lifts her up and then shifts her so she’s essentially standing straight up on his hands which are held close to the body at shoulder level. Tessa’s heart is in her throat, but his niece has obviously done this a few times and holds her center well. This family is nuts in the best possible way. 

The girl does a more complicated dismount than the other kids and Scott high fives her once she’s back on the ice. 

And then he turns to Jo. “You wanna try an easy one?”

Jo looks over at Tessa, a little bit of trepidation in her face and a lot of excitement. Tessa locks eyes with Scott and she can tell he means it when he says an easy one so she nods her permission. 

Scott turns his attention back to Jo and gives her a few simple instructions. The small girl bites her lip as she listens carefully, and then he’s lifting her by her armpits as she holds her core. He spins in that position for a few revolutions before saying a few more words that Tessa can’t hear. She sees Jo nod in response, and then he pops her up so she’s sitting on his shoulder and he spins a few more times before gently lowering her back to the ice. 

Jo’s eyes are wide but there’s a huge smile on her face. Scott gives her a high five and then Skitch pulls her daughter’s attention away as he raves about how well she did. 

Nicole calls out to the kids that it’s time to pack it in and everyone reluctantly gets off the ice. Jo and Skitch are still deep in conversation as they take off their skates and helmets, and the other parents are busy helping their younger children divest themselves of various equipment, so Tessa sits on the bench near Scott as he unties his skates. 

“Was that okay?” he asks. 

“Very okay.”

“She’s definitely had dance lessons. I assume she hasn’t done much partnering or lifts at her age, though.”

“No, but she knows how to hold herself. Her uncles have been swinging the girls around since they were babies and they could get them to balance in the palm of one of their hands even before either girl could stand on their own.” Tessa hasn’t thought about that terrifying trick in forever. 

“A classic,” Scott says with a knowing smile. 

At another lull in the conversation, Tessa takes a breath and then asks what she’s been wanting to for the whole afternoon. “Would you want to get coffee with me?” 

Scott’s head shoots up, eyes wide but smile wider. “Yeah. I would love to get coffee with you.”

“Would tomorrow work? I have clients until five, but after that I’m free for the evening.” 

“The whole evening?” he asks, eyebrows raised slightly. 

“Well, yeah. It’s Friday so Jo’s with her dad for the weekend and I find myself with no plans for once...” She tries to plan very little during her Friday afternoons and evenings so she can have the time, either with Jo, or just by herself to regroup and recharge before they head into what always seems to be extremely busy weekends, but she’s pretty sure she wouldn’t mind breaking that habit for him. Just sitting close to him has energy building up under her skin that wants to burst out 

“Would you be opposed to dinner then?” he asks. 

“Dinner is good,” Tessa says, and she has to bite her lip to keep her smile from taking over her entire face. 

They grin at each other as as Scott gently runs the pad of his index finger over the top of her hand, tracing her freckles. “You have freckles, too. Skitch told me that his friend JJ has so many freckles and he thinks it’s the coolest thing.”

“Oh. I have them all over. Hated them when I was her age and never really liked them till I had her and we’d come home from our vacations at the cottage covered in them. She would run her fingers all over mine and then point to her own and laugh in delight. Couldn’t see them as anything but amazing after that.”

“They are pretty amazing,” he says as he looks up at her again. 

“So dinner. Tomorrow,” Tessa says, breaking them from their reverie as she remembers they’re surrounded by people. 

“I look forward to it,” Scott says, tapping his finger against her hand, before focusing on getting his skates off again. 

When Tessa looks around, she notes that Jo and Skitch are still in their own little world, but that Nicole and Scott’s brothers have definitely witnessed their moment and are all wearing varying looks of approval. 

They head out once all the gear is stowed properly, the adult Moirs stopping to greet almost every member of the incoming Synchro team by name and a hug or high five. They even introduce Tessa and Jo to two of the coaches, more Moirs, before finally managing to make it out to the cars. Tessa smiles as Jo gives quick hugs and high fives to all the kids and adults, depending on mutual comfort level. When Jo gets to Scott, her daughter looks up at him with a smile and gives him a big high five, thanks him for playing with them, and then shoves her bag into the back seat of Tessa’s car and climbs in. 

Scott pulls Tessa into a quick hug, which Tessa returns. She catches sight of her daughter in the back seat, sees her staring off into space and knows she needs to say one more thing to him before they go on that date tomorrow. 

“One thing before we have dinner tomorrow,” Tessa says. 

“What’s that?” he asks. The words are light but she can tell that he knows whatever she’s gonna say is serious and he’s giving her his full attention. 

“I really like you,” she starts, not able to stop from bouncing on the balls of her feet as she says it. “But so does she. And I have rarely been happier than when we met you and you justified her admiration. I don’t want her to lose one of her idols. So if you don’t think this can be a serious thing, or if you don’t think that we can potentially break up some day and have her still adore you, then I’d rather us not go there together. I wasn’t going to risk it, but like I said...I really like you,” she finishes with a helpless shrug. “And I think you’re a good man.”

“I really like you, too,” he tells her. “I’m walking into this with my eyes as wide open as I can. I promise I’ll be as careful as I can. With both of you.”

Tessa stares him square in the eye, looking for any sign of uncertainty or hint of cavalier disregard and he lets her. When she’s satisfied that she finds neither she nods, and squeezes his hand. 

“Besides,” he says with a vulnerable smirk. “Who’s to say you won’t be the one to break my heart.”

“I’ll be as careful as I can,” she echoes. 

He nods and then brings her hand up to his lips, pressing a quick kiss against her knuckles. “See you tomorrow then?”

“Yeah,” she agrees. “See you tomorrow.”

**Author's Note:**

> I hope y'all enjoyed it! Let me know here or over at boo-writes-stuff on tumblr.


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